A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved? • Hacker News Board

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#101

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 8:42 AM UTC

civilian wrote: post #47

JulianMorrison wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these cultures (including their language) were forcefully banned, obliterated by law, lynching, displacement. discriminatory treatment, and the stealing of children. I do not exaggerate. So don't pretend they are dying of natural causes when the knife is still sticking out of their back.

If languages are natural, then humans and all their crappy actions are also natural.

You're equivocating and that isn't an argument. "My nose can't be running, it does't have legs." Yes, but there is snot dripping down your face.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#102

Post by 67726e » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #84

67726e wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play the devil's advocate, maybe they deserve to die out. If they would have innovated and conquered first, their language could have lived and ours could be the one on its deathbed. Survival of the fittest, if you will.

The devil has enough advocates. Every time the words "to play the devil's advocate..." cross your brain, just punch yourself in the face instead. Soon the urge will pass.

Every time you feel like posting a snarky reply on Hacker News, go fuck yourself.

It's an honest question and I was hoping for some interesting answers. I was hoping someone would come along and have something interesting a la Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, & Steel"[0] that may explore what role languages had on development of cultures, similar to the aforementioned book's exploration of the development of civilizations and how that led to the fateful interactions that have shaped the modern world.

No, instead of an insightful answer, let's just let our liberal outrage fly at a comment that could not possibly have any good or real intent behind it. I'm clearly just a neo-Nazi posting up in here in HN, advocating the destruction of those damn Injuns! God forbid one uses a rhetorical device!

[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#103

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 10:57 PM UTC

67726e wrote: post #102

JulianMorrison wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devil has enough advocates. Every time the words "to play the devil's advocate..." cross your brain, just punch yourself in the face instead. Soon the urge will pass.

Every time you feel like posting a snarky reply on Hacker News, go fuck yourself. It's an honest question and I was hoping for some interesting answers. I was hoping someone would come along and have something interesting a la Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, & Steel"[0] that may explore what role languages had on development of cultures, similar to the aforementioned book's exploration of the development of civilizati…

If I thought you were arguing in good faith, I'd say something like: you are wasting your time running toxicology screens on a patient with the knife hilt still protruding. It's intensely unsubtle what happened: the languages were banned, boarding schools beat kids for talking anything but English, and so on.

However, I feel that nobody plays devil's advocate in good faith. In the worst case it's a shallow wrapper for "lets pretend my hate is a hypothetical" or in the best, "lets spend a few minutes kicking the skulls of innocents down the road, merely for idle argument's sake." Which evinces such a callous disregard it's hardly better than the former.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#104

Post by hobarrera » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #44

freehunter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does have a foundation in science (or reality) is that the teaching of another language means a child won't have room in their daily schedule for other things. There's only so much time in the day. If a child is learning math and science and their main language and other skills for seven hours, sleeps for eight hours, and eats for two hours, that only leaves seven hours in the day to fit in everything else, incl…

>what other, more useful knowledge could they have gained otherwise? How does one rank the usefulness of knowledge? Language acquisition (and the acquisition of a particular language) is not a skill in isolation. It enhances other skills such as problem solving, logical inference, the ability to recognize patterns, knowledge synthesis... skills I daresay are useful in other fields, such as computer programming. I hea…

Sure, there's benefits of learning a second language. But you generally get those benefits if someone else speaks that language.

Learning Chinese, Spanish, or German as a child can help a lot during live, socially, and in other aspects.

Learning a language like this just for the sake of saving it won't have those same benefits.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#105

Post by EdiX » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

panglott wrote: post #92

EdiX wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storing away all of geocities for future reference is a good thing. Having every children memorize passages from geocities would be pointless and no one does it. Having them learn a dead language is cruel, you are wasting their time to make them learn something that will only serve to keep them isolated. And it's all in vain, making a language alive is the opposite of preserving it because live languages change.

No-one is arguing that children from minority communities should be prevented from learning an international language. The only question is whether they should be prevented from learning the language of their heritage. Multilingualism is the norm. And it's easy enough to learn Math in English, English in English, and literature in your mother tongue.

Sure, but why? Why not have them learn english and another language more useful than a dying one?

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#106

Post by 67726e » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 7:33 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #103

67726e wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time you feel like posting a snarky reply on Hacker News, go fuck yourself. It's an honest question and I was hoping for some interesting answers. I was hoping someone would come along and have something interesting a la Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, & Steel"[0] that may explore what role languages had on development of cultures, similar to the aforementioned book's exploration of the development of civilizati…

If I thought you were arguing in good faith, I'd say something like: you are wasting your time running toxicology screens on a patient with the knife hilt still protruding. It's intensely unsubtle what happened: the languages were banned, boarding schools beat kids for talking anything but English, and so on. However, I feel that nobody plays devil's advocate in good faith. In the worst case it's a shallow wrapper fo…

Not every dead language is a result of a genocide. My question stands on it's own, and there is more to it than what you imply. Yes, the most obvious, ready examples are what you say, but not all.

Re: A Loss for Words: Can a Dying Language Be Saved?

#107

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:05 PM UTC

panglott wrote: post #99

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A partial case study: In Wales ~100% of the population speak English. In the last UK census the numbers who responded that they could _speak_ any old Welsh, Cymraeg , was Cymraeg is at such low demand by parents that there are no secondary schools that use it (except as a subject, like you'd learn a foreign language). Excepting a handful of Patagonians and some ex-pat Welsh there is nowhere outside the country to spe…

Does knowing about the country you live in really have so little value? Maybe it's not the only valuable thing in the world, but knowing about the culture of the society you live in sure seems like it would be valuable...? Welsh has been largely abandoned in Cardiff and southern Wales, but there are large sections of the country where at least a quarter of the population speaks Welsh, and in other places 65-80% of pe…

>Does knowing about the country you live in really have so little value? //

Does communication have so little value that you'd choose an anachronistic minority language that a small proportion of the native population understand - and an even smaller proportion prefer in daily communication - in favour of a modern, widely used, language?

History has its place but there is very little of use to the majority that is gained by using minority languages - recently I was looking at an artistic Kufic Arabic script and at other times have studied (briefly) historic languages to understand other peoples, but there's no need to learn Cymraeg to understand Welsh people when you are one speaking the language of your people modern Welsh (aka English, that is seemingly dismissed for its name).